Hands-on with NVIDIA-powered Audi Connect

Last year Audi announced a partnership with NVIDIA to pack its next generation Audi Connect infotainment system with the chip-maker's Tegra graphics processor. The chipset is part of Audi's new modular multimedia system – dubbed MMX – which allows the automaker to upgrade the guts of its infotainment system as new hardware comes to market. Today, Audi showed off the fruits of their tie-up.

The new Audi Connect system is set to arrive in the 2013 A3 and Audi trotted out a mock-up of the new compact hatch's interior to show off the next-gen system here at CES. The Touchpad (no, not that one) originally fitted to the Audi A7 and A8 has been incorporated into the MMI knob, allowing users to write individual letters to input destinations, point-of-interest and web searches in place of tedious scrolling. Audi also swapped the traditional buttons flanking the MMI knob with new toggle switches, all of which will make their way to other Audi models in the coming years.

Finally, there's the ultra-thin seven-inch LCD powered by that Tegra chip, which renders 3D animations with ease, along with displaying Google Earth navigation and Google Street View images. Check it all out in the video after the jump.
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